


5 Drabbles for the Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight Challenge

by Nightfox



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Challenge Response, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:26:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightfox/pseuds/Nightfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Arthurian legend meets the revised vision of the BBC as blended by the hand of a slash-shipping fan!</p><p>This is my response to <span><a href="http://hermitknut.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://hermitknut.livejournal.com/"><b>hermitknut</b></a></span>'s Challenge to write a series of Merlin (BBC) drabbles prompted by couplets taken from Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Drabbles for the Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight Challenge

**Author's Note:**

> So, I picked up the gauntlet and accepted [](http://hermitknut.livejournal.com/profile)[**hermitknut**](http://hermitknut.livejournal.com/) 's challenge. I was assigned 5 and these are the couplets and the drabbles inspired by each.

  
_______________________________________

  
First

not all were stunned and stilled  
by dread, but duty-bound  
to hold their tongues until  
their sovereign could respond.

The hush was pregnant. Many a hand rose then fell with purpose frustrated. Others lay still in their owner’s laps, stiff as though cold. No sound but of breathing and shifting feet. All eyes pinned Arthur.

The stranger assessed, he rose and strode forward. The clicking of but one set of boots the only sound in the room until he reached his goal. Silence fell again.

As he drew breath to speak, so did the court and a hundred gasps shattered the shrouding silence. When it came, his speech was soft, smothered somehow by that blanket of breathless expectancy.

  


  
_______________________________________

  
Second

At that time of tiding,  
He prayed to highest heaven.  
Let Mother Mary guide him  
Towards some house or haven.

  
Midwinter was hardly the ideal time for cross-country travel. It certainly wasn’t his first miserable winter journey but it bid fair to be his last. Taking in the windswept landscape surrounding him, he felt despair. A foreign emotion, one he’d not felt since he was a throwaway child in his uncle’s household.

Found within himself was a prayer, form rusty from disuse. It soared skyward to whatever deity might listen. He needed to live long enough to meet the fate he’d agreed to. Something larger than him demanded it. He simply prayed for the means to see another day.

  


  
_______________________________________

  
Third

the strike he must receive,  
as cruel fate decrees.  
The lady begs her leave –  
at once Gawain agrees.

  
“You’re really gonna go through with this?”

“You know I have to.”

“Of all people, I never thought _you_ would be this stupidly noble!”

“Merlin..”

“No! If you’re determined to kill yourself, I’m not going to watch and I’m damn well not going to mourn you!”

“I don’t _want_ you to do either.”

“You wanker! Don’t you know I love you, you stupid son of a bitch?”

Merlin hurls himself at Gwaine and slams their lips together in a bruising kiss before he whirls away and storms from the room.

  


  
_______________________________________

  
Fourth

‘You judge wrong, by Saint John,’  
he said to her, and smiled.  
‘There is no other one  
and won’t be for a while!’

  
“You know you love me.”

He said it with a smile, the twinkle never dying from his eye.

“More’s the pity, I do. But a fool is as easily gotten as replaced.”

“Merlin! You wound me. I, as you well know, am one of a kind. The mold is broken and never shall another be made.”

“The mold may be broken but who’s to say it can’t be mended?”

“Would you wield your power thus?”

The sorcerer sighed.

“For you, Gwaine. I’d sunder the veil itself and drag you screaming to my side.”

“Don’t think I’d fight that hard.”

  


  
_______________________________________

  
Fifth

He bowed to take the blade  
and bared his neck and nape  
but, loathed to look afraid,  
he feigned a fearless state.

  
His own hubris had brought him to this state and his native bravado would see him through. Swishing his hair about one last time, he imagined it was his lover’s lithe fingers drawing the long dark locks forward to fall over one shoulder.

He bowed his head, uncharacteristically solemn and offered his naked throat to the emerald edge that would no doubt sunder his soul from his body. He closed his eyes and summoned an image of the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. Merlin smiled at him as the axe whistled through the air.


End file.
